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Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Buffers

Continuing its annoying tic of anointing future policy failure scapegoats as "czars", the brain trust's master plan hits a snag:

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration's difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.


Normal people would take such a reaction as what is technically known as a "large fucking hint". These idiots will simply look for a different scheme to try to insulate themselves from accountability. Jesus H. Chocolate Christ, is the job description for this "war czar" pretty much the same as that of the much-vaunted "commander-in-chief", or are we missing some insanely subtle distinction here?

2 comments:

cavjam said...

This idea apparently came from the Newt who seems overly fond of czarism, the root word of which is Caesar, the title of the dictator once Rome ceased being a republic. Ave Caesar!

Heywood J. said...

Well, Newt does seem to be one of the ones of these chuckleheads who actually reads a book once in a while, so that doesn't surprise me.

Personally, I've always preferred the Russian spelling of tsar, and maybe the insular, autocratic nature of the tsarist history of the Russians also has some analogue to the current crew. But yeah, nice parallel between the caesars, the bread-and-circus public, and their contemporaries now.

Of course, the Serious Media will get around to covering these things, just as soon as they finish nibbling the last scrap of flesh from Don Imus' bony ass, and sniffing Kato Birkhead's taint for another month.